Food

I'm kind of a fan of cooking shows.
(This is saying something because I despise television)
But not just any cooking shows.  Watching a cooking show must be like watching Barcelona or Udinese play futbal: easy, rhythmic, exciting but not in that I've-had-12-espressos-on-an-empty-stomach kind of exciting.  I don't want to have to pop a nitro tab afterward.
I want to relax and enjoy the experience, to forget that it takes huge amounts of talent to perform the feats I see displayed on the screen before me.  I want to be made to believe that I, too, can weave through all of Real Madrid's defenders, past Casillas, and score.  

Once I tried playing soccer.  It looked like I was having a seizure.  Its pretty similar when I'm in the kitchen.  But I'm okay with being horrible at soccer because its not, after all, necessary for life (so we tell ourselves as the end of the season approaches) but being inept in the kitchen is most unfortunate.

Oh, sure I know how to grow food and I certainly know how to go to the grocery store and buy it, but to put all of the raw ingredients together in the form of something tasty, savory, even something half-way edible, alas, no.

By way of consolation some of my friends have offered such comments as "Don't worry, you have other talents". Thanks everyone but last time I looked at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, food was right there after oxygen so I'm not sure just how I'm compensating with anything at all relevant.  (One suspects empty platitudes)

Fortunately for me and my family, Mihai can cook and does so with great skill.
Unfortunately, Mihai has a day job which often renders him otherwise occupied.
When we are in Santa Cruz this is not a problem since there is this place called Tacos Moreno.
Unfortunately there is no Tacos Moreno in Obedin.  Or even in Craiova.  And I'm guessing I can pretty much rule out all of Romania as well.  Restaurants in Romania are largely just places you go to when you are on the road and you run out of the food you brought with you but you've got 6 hours left to drive.
Here its home cooking or bust.

Fortunately my mother-in-law can cook and is not often otherwise occupied.
Her food is nothing short of fantastic and I'm not just saying that to flatter her so that she will continue to cook for me because after all, she doesn't read English and she has no idea this blog even exists or that I might be telling you all about her.  (And, knowing Pia, she would not care one way or the other).
No, its genuinely delicious and I find that this is the case most every where I go: Marius' mother=delicious, Simona=delicious, our friends in Brasov=delicious.
I don't mean the kind of delicious you say to someone when you are at their table and you simply want to be polite. I mean the kind of delicious where you wish you were a cow so you could have six stomachs to fill.

Its not that there aren't fantastic home cooks in the States.  Sure there are, I know a good many of them; I've lived with some (I'm talking to you, Alma).

But what is so particularly awe-inspiring is that the meals here are prepared under some of the most inconvenient if not adverse circumstances.  (No, not like that crazy show where the guy is dropped in the middle of the frozen tundra and has to prepare a banquet for the heads of GE).

I mean here they cook what they do with nothing more than two dented pots, a wooden spoon and knives that haven't been sharpened since 1963.  No blenders, juicers, mixers, reamers or rasps, no recipe books, no measuring cups or spoons, no Good Grips potato peeler or garlic press.  And still they turn out meals that blow your mind.  Its true that Pia now has a kitchen that is bigger than my bedroom back in the States but it wasn't always so.  She used to cook in this:

and did I mention that she now does this one-handed?  (post chemo nerve damage has rendered her left arm largely useless).

In the case of Marius' mother, she cooked a four-course meal for over 20 people out of her broom-closet sized kitchen with a prep space that measures about a meter square.  As I recall, the temperature neared 100 degrees that day and after the meal was over every bowl and plate had been licked clean.

In the case of Simona, she manages with nothing more than a partially functioning stove and an outside sink at the house at Vaideeni.  Still by some miracle she produces some of the best food I have ever eaten.  In fact, much of the food pictured in this blog thus far was produced in the Vaideeni kitchen.

Romania has no clearly defined nor internationally renowned cuisine like French or Chinese.  It's mostly just taking whatever ingredients are on hand and making the best of them.
There are certain staples such as eggs, bread, cabbage, bell peppers.  Fresh from the garden in summer, pickled and brought up from the root cellar during the winter.

Probably the most specific dish is Ciorbă.  A kind of soup with a thin, sour broth, made with whatever is on hand including nettles in the spring.  Yes, nettles.  It's fantastic.

Its with regret that I inform you that we have no food stylist here.  I find that my photography skills are just not up to the task of making a bowl of soup look exciting or, frankly, even the least bit appetizing.  But it is, I promise you. I just can't get it to translate for the camera.

There is a drink made from the flowers of the elderberry tree.  Here its called soc.  While the flowers are drying they smell alarmingly similar to the sweaty armpits of a 12-year-old boy which I have been smelling a lot of these days since the weather is becoming increasingly warm.  Not to fear, however, because in an unexpected but pleasant turn of events, when these flowers are added to simple syrup, the combination produces the most lovely juice; it is delightfully fragrant and refreshing over sparkling water.  Ah, the miracle of chemistry!

Similiarly, rose petals are turned into syrup (petale de trandafir) which makes for an interesting drink when combined with sparkling water.  Its not my personal favorite but many Romanians living in the States get very nostalgic for this smell and taste.  The rose petals look so lovely in the bowl that I couldn't resist a photo.

I am in awe of these women.  True, I am in awe of someone who fixes Kraft Mac n' Cheese on the stovetop instead of the microwave but I think you can agree that cooking here involves something extra special.
It carries a lot of what Michael Pollen espouses, a lot of what the locally sourced, locally grown movement is all about.  Cooking with what is seasonal and on hand.  Dare I say cooking with what is natural?  No, let's not go there.

Legalization. Naturalization. Immigration. Deportation. Frustration.

Come on now, did you really think that I had forgotten to update you all on the visa extension debacle?  True, I've not said much about it but that has been due to there not being much to say due to lack of progress and also due to there being so many more pleasant things about which to write.
When I say there hasn't been much progress I don't mean that hour upon hour upon hour have not been spent walking the streets of Craiova visiting government office after government office.  Don't kid yourself.  But does that mean anything has really been accomplished?  Ah, your optimism makes me laugh.
However, not all is at a complete stand-still.  We have achieved some successes and as of May 20 at 14:20 we can report the following:  Mihai has an ID and is once again legal in his country of birth.  The boys, due to having a now-legal father and the fact that their birth certificates were translated into Romanian, are now citizens.  These three members of the Ionescu Traveling Clan can stay in Romania as long as they would like.
Then there's Leigha.
Let me summarize the situation with a nice visual:

citizen

citizen

citizen

 persona non grata

Its possible that the biggest roadblock (the translating of the U.S. marriage certificate) might well be resolved by the end of this week.  Its also possible that astronomers will detect a planet-destroying meteor hurling its way to the earth and the President of the United States will hire Bruce Willis and his team of handsome, quirky renegades to neutralize it before it kills us all.
Yeah.
So if and when the translation is complete, Mihai and I will no longer be living in sin and then I will have a mere 200 or so pieces of documentation that I will need in order to submit a request to remain legally in this country. All of these documents will have to be notarized and photocopied and I will have to attach declarations* to each.  None of these things (the photocopying or the notarizing or the declaring) can be done in the same building.  That would be too convenient.  However, if all of this can be accomplished before June 15, we are in business.  If not, we will be posting photos from many, many other countries in Europe.
In a nutshell: if we get the temporary resident card in time, we will stay here and if not, we will spend six months living around Europe until I am allowed back into Romania.
I will spare you the whining about having to travel because I am fully aware of how pathetic it sounds.  All I can say is that I really like living here and I would prefer to be able to stay but I'm sure a month in Barcelona will make up for it.   
Is that really all there is to the story?  Oh surely you know there is at least one tale of absurdity but if I am going to get those papers then let me have them in my hands before I do a tell-all.  If I don't get them, then let me spend a few days lying on a beach in Greece and throw back a few glasses of Ouzo so that all of this seems a humorous memory...
So, a little more patience, please, and all will be revealed.
*declarations are legal documents for which you must hire a lawyer to write down stuff that we normally all take for granted such as:
Along with my marriage licence I had to submit a "declaration" in which I declared that I was married on the date stated in the marriage licence and that I was, in fact, married to the man whose name appears in the marriage licence and that I was thereafter willing to be called by the name stated in the marriage licence as well as the name I chose to put on my passport.  Once the marriage licence is translated (in effect, reproducing all of the information I have just declared-which was of course already declared on the original marriage licence) I will then have to produce another declaration at the office of immigration that I (some of you have guessed it and some of you now think I'm just making this up as I go along) was married on the day stated in the declaration and the licence, that I was married to the name whose name appears....

Small Excursions

Its true that we have been spending a lot of time traveling to other European countries, working on the house-improvement projects and trying to get this visa extension thing figured out but that doesn't mean we haven't had time to see some sights a little farther away than our backyard but a little closer than Vienna.
Here is a sample of our day/weekend trips thus far:

First we had to go northwest to the mountain village of Vaideeni to visit our beloved friends Vali and Simona - brother and sister-in-law of Marius and Monica (I'm thinking of doing a family tree or some sort of schematic to help you all keep everyone straight).

Then we took a little day trip south to Simona's parents house in Măceşu.  Most of the interesting photos from that trip have already shown up in the "Primavara" post but here are a couple that didn't make it in.

I love inginuity

Simona's dad and the cat that reminded the boys of our cats in Santa Cruz

Then we went north to Braşov for the special assembly day.  5 hours there, 5 hours back on winding, mountain roads and I was so carsick I couldn't take a single photo until I had been out of the car for a good 2 hours or more. Sorry about that.  But let me just say that it was a gorgeous, warm, sunny morning and everyone was walking around in their shirtsleeves in the open-air stadium
Because there was a special speaker, the place was packed so we could only find seats on the ground at the back of the stadium, up against some plastic sheeting that served as the back wall.  It wasn't a bad spot, really, except for the bits of chipped cement that were digging into our buttocks and thighs but a few adjustments with a strategically placed magazine or two and we were surprisingly cozy.  The important thing was that we were there.
Since we were at the back on the side nearest the street, the traffic was a bit loud at times particularly as the stadium is next to the fire station.  Sitting through one emergency after another, I began to get a feel for what it must be like to have Meniere's Disease-a condition in which you can hear nothing but a constant, high pitched noise.  For those of you who think this sounds like a pretty fun pathology to have, let me tell you its not.
But it was all good and the important thing was that we were there.
In the afternoon it started to look like rain and then lo and behold it did, in fact, begin to rain.  But we had no worries because Mihai had the foresight to bring an umbrella and I had a hood on my jacket and where we were, up against the plastic sheeting, we could curl up into little balls and be pretty well set.
Because the important thing was that we were there.
Then the rain got heavier and what I mean by heavier is that it became a downpour and by downpour I mean that my notebook became so wet that the pen tip pushed right through the paper and the ink ran in little rivers over my hands.  But since my hands were so cold that I couldn't hold the pen properly, it didn't matter much anyway.  But we were there, and that was what mattered.
Then then wind began to blow but we were fortunate to be sitting with our backs against the plastic so we were nicely sheltered from the worst of it.  Then the wind really picked up and began vibrating the plastic sheeting and all of the sporting pennants that hung from the back of the stadium and the sound was something like sitting underneath target practice for a U.S Marines' rapid-fire light artillery unit.  Did it thunder?  I'm not sure, all I could hear were the guns, er, plastic.  And when I say that is all I could hear, I mean that was it.  Flapping plastic.
But we were there, right?
By the time we got into the car to drive home we were blue, dripping and deaf.
The stadium is not too many blocks from the famous "Dracula's Castle" and as we drove through the torrential rain I thought "too bad we won't get a photo of the castle" but then the rain let up and I thought we were in luck. The castle came into view and as Mihai pulled over and as I readied the camera I noticed the oddest white stuff floating in the air.

Snow.

In May.

Seriously.

You say you can't believe it well, I am here to tell you that its true and I know it is because we. were. there.

Right about here I stopped taking photos because I could see the rain was picking up and I wanted to get the camera packed away some place safe.  The only thing you missed was the sight of umbrellas blowing inside out.

Dracula's Castle looking eerie in the snow-filled twilight

(disappearing) Village Life part 3

The other day I was talking to my neighbor, Nicolina, while we were sitting at the soccer field watching the kids play and we were trying to figure out how many people live in Obedin.  We figured there are about 125 houses in the village and if each household averages 3 residents, that is around 375 total.  It seems like a remarkably small number;  I've lived in some tiny towns in my life but this wins the prize for the smallest.
Just about everyone who lives here was also born and raised here.  There are a lot of multi-generational families sharing one house as well as a significant number of grandparents raising grandchildren while the middle generation are off in Italy or some other place trying to earn a living.  If they aren't in another country, then they are most likely working at a factory in Craiova, the largest city near us.
Not many of the locals have cars so they take the buses to work early in the morning and return in the evening.  I know many families in the States can relate to this sort of life but there are a few significant differences between there and here.  One is that we in the States generally make more than $600 a month (don't fool yourself into thinking everything is cheaper here; gas is the equivalent of $7.00 per gallon) and when we return home after a long day of work we can throw our clothes into the washer and relax with a hot shower.  In Obedin only about 20% of the houses have indoor plumbing and the laundry is generally done by hand.
I don't say any of this to make people in the West feel spoiled and lazy (although I personally feel extraordinarily spoiled and lazy) I say this because it helps to explain the unfortunate trend here to abandon the agricultural life.
When we came to Obedin in '99 it seemed like you couldn't walk two feet without running into someone's cow, goat or chicken but through the years the sight of these animals is becoming less and less commonplace.  I mentioned this to Nicolina who confirmed that its not merely my imagination; within the past five or six  years, she said, there has been a radical change in the community.  Fewer and fewer families are keeping livestock.
I've had the experience of butchering pigs and I can tell you that after three days of that business I was ready to kiss the first butcher I met and I decided I never wanted to see or smell pork again as long as I live.  And that was just the butchering part; I wasn't involved in raising them (that was the task of the wonderful Don and Kim).  The problem here is that these days none of the strong, middle generation are available to perform the labor.  Its not that they disdain it or that they are eager to abandon traditional values; on the contrary, many of the people my age are sad to see these traditions slip away.  By and large they would rather not be miles away, they would prefer to be in their village with their families and their farms.  Maybe at one time they romanticized about a glamorous job in the city but these days they long for a healthier way of living.  But they can't sustain their families without taking factory jobs.
So the middle generation are gone and in their absence the elderly simply cannot shoulder the whole load alone.  Not when there is also the gardening and by that I mean rural gardening; not little pots of herbs on a windowsill but meter after meter of earth to tend and the rigors of four seasons to manage.  They make jams from the fruits, wine from the grapes, palincă (think moonshine) from the plums and can the vegetables.  In addition many now have the added responsibility of caring for the little children that are left behind.
These are some tough folks, let me tell you.

The grass is still cut by hand using a coasă or seceră.  Seriously.  These ladies were cutting the grass when I walked by with the the camera and they stopped just long enough to pose for my photo and to ask for a copy for themselves.  They were very disappointed to discover that its a digital camera but I am going to see if there is some place I can get a set printed out.  It will probably take 3 weeks and 4 different trips to the city to accomplish this simple task.

Fortunately not all the ways of pastoral life have disappeared just yet.  We are thrilled to still be able to have our milk delivered every other evening by the local dairywoman.  And the dairy farm is four houses down.  How's that for locally sourced?

Taking the cows in on a rainy spring evening; I wish I had a nicer shot but usually when I hear the melodic sounds of the cows coming in, I am too far away from my camera to reach it in time to get a photo.

Check out those udders; in a few minutes that will be on our doorstep

for at-home delivery,

not in quaint glass bottles or wooden buckets but at least we reuse these plastic water bottles!

Among the other sounds I hear in the evening (and throughout the day) is the soft clippity clop of horses' hoofs, the rattle of wooden wagon wheels and sometimes the call of the wagon driver.
With gas at $7.00 who wouldn't want to own a petrol/diesel-free source of transportation?  You can pile it full of hay or load it with kids or pipes or sheep or whatever.  No leather seats to tear, no mats to stain, no air conditioner to give you that odd, unnatural taste in your mouth and the resulting cough.
Sure its a drag to be behind one on a two- lane road with heavy traffic coming from the other direction.  And sure its pretty scary to come up behind one of these things in the dark of the night (many of them have reflectors and even licence plates but not all).
But over all, who wouldn't want the sounds of horse drawn wagons going up and down their road during the day instead of noisy, exhaust spewing cars with radios blasting EuroDisco?
Legislation was enacted recently that will ban the driving of all wagons in the city of  Craiova starting June 1 of this year.  We are pretty far outside of the city so our roads will remain unaffected but I wonder how much longer it will take before this sort of law spreads and applies to all roads in Romania.  I hope not any time soon.

 On Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 3 o'clock in the afternoon the boys and a group of their friends (including Alexandru, Nicolina's son) meet at the poiană, the field beside the schoolyard.  We don't have enough numbers or skill for a real futbal game so we usually start with Victorie and then improvise from there.  The day usually ends with Raţă, Raţă, Gâscă (in case you couldn't guess that's Duck, Duck, Goose).

As spring progresses, the weather is growing increasingly warm and the kids need to take frequent water breaks: we bring two bottles of water, one for drinking and one for pouring over our heads.  This practice is now a great favorite but it took some time to catch on since Romanians seem to harbor tremendous paranoia in relation to things that are cold, particularly when they come into contact with the human body.

Just talk to anyone whose child has recently experienced a cold, cough or fever and they will tell you that the day before the symptoms began, the child had ice cream, a drink of cold water or stood near an open window.  It doesn't matter if you personally witnessed the child in question being sneezed on no less than 12 times by another child with green snot spewing from every orifice.  It doesn't matter if four other children also ate ice cream under the exact same circumstances and none of them are ill because they are all in a different class room.  Believe me, I've tried this approach and no one is interested in my American theories regarding epidemiology, etiology or microbiology.  But since I realize that it makes no difference what I say and since I have a great deal of respect for the intensity of the labor involved in raising a child without indoor plumbing, I usually just nod sympathetically.
So the point is that on the first really hot day at the field when I threw a glass of water at Mircea's head to cool him down, you would have thought, from the reaction of the locals, that I had shot him.
But kids are kids, no matter what unscientific notions their grandparents harbor and it wasn't long before the bravest were asking for water to throw on themselves.  (I'm not crazy enough to throw it on them myself because you never know who might be watching and think I'm trying to kill the village schoolchildren)  Now water throwing is part of daily village life.
Also part of our days are the bouquets of flowers and other ornaments that the little girls make for me.  They like raţă raţă gâscă but not the other games so while the big kids do their penalty kicks and Victorie, the  little ones employ themselves by making me stuff.  By the time we walk home I'm usually decked out like the Queen of Sheba..

future jewelry designers of Romania

left: a bouquet. top: a crown which was surprisingly durable.  I think it lasted through 3 days of wear.

An entry detailing our daily life would not be complete without mentioning our across-the-street neighbor, Titel, who is also Nicolina's father (see how its all circular around here?)  While most folks in our village do not walk into the homes of other folks uninvited, Titel is not most folks.  Its not that he's nosey or pervy, on the contrary, with utmost politeness early each morning he removes his shoes at the door and tip-toes in his socks up the tiled stairs and then calls out "Domnul Director!"  I'm sure in Titel's mind this is not much louder than a stage whisper but we've got high ceilings and lots of tile and we are, after all, upstairs where the sound travels and reverberates....

We are trying to figure out interesting uses for alarm clocks since between Titel and the roosters, they have been rendered totally superfluous.  I'm thinking about turning mine into a flower pot.  Would Martha Stewart be proud or horrified?

Of course, he's more than just the Ionescu alarm clock  he's also Silviu's go-to handy-man and drinking buddy.  Generally if there is a home improvement project going on around here, Titel is involved.  Right now we've got a new fence going up and the construction of the last bedroom and half bath upstairs.  So we're seeing a lot of Titel these days.
While Titel speaks no English at all (okay, he knows one word: drunk which he says whenever he thinks it might be any where close to appropriate and often when its not) he's the sort of guy who seems to make language barriers melt away.  His blue eyes sparkle and he laughs and holds up whatever glass is handy and says "Hai, noroc!" to show you that all is well in the world or, if there are troubles and woes about, they can be easily brushed aside with a beer or palincă.  He's such a fan of this gesture that I once saw him say  "Hai noroc!" and hold up a roll of toilet paper because there was no glass or jar available.

A brief word with you all about photos:  We have a nice camera, a really nice camera.  And I try to remember to take this camera with me everywhere I go but because its that kind of nice camera, its heavy and awkward to carry around all the time.  Sometimes I have this camera but I feel rude snapping off photos of folks innocently going about their daily business.  I don't like being rude so I need to engage in some conversation first and sometimes I just don't feel like engaging in drawn-out conversations and struggling with how to say "a blog is like a newspaper that I am writing for my friends and family back in the States (and elsewhere) who are interested in the culture of rural Romanians..."  Really, it can be a pain, especially when people are responding to you in Italian and you are trying to make it clear to them that you do not understand Italian.  And heaven forbid you  make the mistake of saying that folks back in the States are interested in things that are "natural", oh good lord...
So sometimes I have the camera but don't take the photo because it feels, well, invasive if I don't ask first and sometimes I don't feel like asking because I'm mentally lazy.  And sometimes I just don't have the camera period because I just want to live in the moment instead of always thinking  "wow, this would be a great photo for the blog!"
But sometimes this results in missing some fantastic photographs.  For example the other day in Craiova I saw a horse-drawn wagon stopped at a light at a busy intersection, sitting there beside a couple of cars and a semi and I thought "this is so classic Romania!" but the camera was in the back seat and by the time I pulled it out and focused, all I managed to get was some horse tail and a street sign.
And yesterday morning on the way to school the cows were out grazing in the morning sun and the dairywoman was leaning on her pitchfork with the light surrounding her...yeah, no camera.
When this happens I spend no small amount of time trying to figure out how to kick my own butt which turns out to be harder than you would imagine.  Apparently you need to have really flexible quadriceps.  Who knew?

Ubiquitous English

Before embarking on our year-long journey, one of the questions I was most frequently asked was "Do you speak Romanian?"
To this question I would casually reply, "Oh sure, I can get by."
What I really mean by this is that I have learned to get by with not understanding 90% of the conversations spoken around me while I am here.  Fortunately I am an introvert which means I am not bothered by spending hours around a table with 5 or 6 people and grasping the meaning of only a sentence or two.  I am perfectly content to sit silently, cutting slice after slice of cake, happy in the knowledge that everyone else is so busy talking that they won't notice that I have eaten three quarters of the dessert and even more blissfully unaware when the hostess glances in my direction and, startled at the sight of the nearly empty cake plate and the telltale crumbs at the corners of my mouth, informs everyone that it is no wonder Americans are all obese if they eat the way this one here does.
It wasn't always so.  As a newlywed 15 years ago I enthusiastically set out to learn the native language of my husband and for a long time I entertained the misconception that he actually was interested in teaching me.  Or, if not teaching me exactly, at least in putting forth the effort required to help me learn.  There was  no doubt in my mind that I could succeed: with a native speaker right there in the house, how could I fail?  And not only that but when we were newlyweds we were living with Mihai's best friend Marius, also a native of Romania.  Two native speakers in the house!  I was on the short track to total fluency.
After a month or two of marriage I realized I still did not know how to say the basics such as "we're out of toilet paper" and "if you're going to produce that sort of odor, go in another room first".  I realized formal lessons were probably in order and both Mihai and Marius agreed.
Oh, I was young in those days and had enthusiasm to spare.  For the first lesson I prepared accordingly: me with a stack of fresh, blank paper; pencils sharpened to a bright, fine point; a book of Romanian grammar circa 1972; a plate of cookies and a pot of hot tea.  I was set for what I was certain would be nothing more than a stunningly successful Romanian class right there in my own living room.
At the end of the first day I was able to declare that under a tree I could see a man, and that on the table I could see a glass.  Being an exceptionally bright student I could even begin to extemporaneously form my own sentences and declared that on the table I could see both a man and a glass.  I imagined that within a month or two I would be engaging in deep philosophical discussions about politics and the state of the global economy.  My accent, I thought, would only serve to make me appear exotic and "pique interest."
That evening when the three of us gathered at the dinner table to eat, Mihai and Marius began to speak in English and I objected.  "Romanian only from now on!  Look, I will start it off my declaring that on this table I see both a man and a glass and ...a man."  (I was uncertain how to pluralize and did not yet know the word for "another").  In return I received blank stares.  The kind that only people raised under communism can seem to produce.
Thinking that perhaps I had spoken too rapidly for them to understand, I repeated my sentence and waited to be congratulated and for Marius to turn to Mihai and say something along the lines of  "all that beauty and so smart, how did you find her?"  Instead I was told that the word I had used for glass was really the word for vase, not at all like a drinking glass, and that I had failed to pluralize correctly.  (it did no good to show them the 1972 grammar book as the source of my vocabulary) Furthermore, they were at the table, not standing on it like some drunken guests at a wedding where the bride and groom made the mistake of providing an open bar.
But since I had given them the go-ahead to speak in Romanian, they happily did so and I sat with increasing feelings of despair as I realized that after all those hours of studying glasses (er, vases) and men and seeing things on things, there was not a single word in their conversation that I recognized.  I thought once that I heard the word "under" and was quickly informed that I was completely mistaken.
However, as I said, I was young in those days and my enthusiasm could not be dampened quite so easily.
The next strategy involved the use of one of those "Teach yourself..." programs.  Now of all of the languages that are relevant to learn for business, pleasure and travel, Romanian is somewhere in the bottom 2 so its not exactly easy to find a book which supports self-guided lessons.  But I can thank British businessmen traveling to Romania for the few that are available.  The problem with these is that Mr. Porter, the British businessman and star of the "Teach Yourself  Romanian" book/CD series, has very different communication needs than do I.  Mr. Porter apparently must know where desks are located and to whom they belong and how many engineers are employed by the company.  Mr. Porter frequently loses his way to the theater and is forever needing to ask if he should turn left on Boulevard Pantelimon or right on Strada Emenescu.  I need to know how to tell someone to cover the salami with plastic before putting it in the refrigerator because otherwise my orange juice tastes disturbingly like cured meat.  Mr. Porter speaks with great deference to his listeners; I must yell at children to stop picking their nose and wiping it on their friends' sweaters.
In the end, there was only one hope left: that going to Romania would at last afford me the opportunity to be absorbed in the language and I could not help but learn.
sigh
English, my dear readers, is everywhere.  It is on the radios, the televisions, on the t-shirts of children, the sides of buses.  Its like cat hair to a person with an allergy to cat hair: you cannot escape it.  People without an allergy don't think its there but it is my friends, it is.  And the problem with it is that it tricks you.  You think you are doing very well with your Romanian, that you are understanding nearly everything when in fact you are relying on this ubiquitous English to fill in the gaps you don't even realize you have until you are in one of those rare situations wherein no one speaks English and you are suddenly in over your head.  At that point you cannot rely on a street sign or a quick translation, you have no choice but to sit back and stuff your face with cake which is not such a bad option for you but most unfortunate for your hostess and anyone else who likes dessert.
Now I know what you're thinking: when will this post end and also, but Leigha, your in-laws don't speak English, can't you learn something from them?
Indeed this is so.  My in-laws do not speak English.  And its true that from my mother-in-law I have learned every conceivable way to ask someone how much money they make, how much their car costs, what the balance is in their bank account and to declare that I have purchased everything I own at an excellent price.
The problem with learning from my father-in-law is that when you attempt even mundane conversation he feels the need to provide you with a detailed, full-blown lesson in grammar.  For example you say to him that the coffee smells wonderful and you must listen to and repeat all of the grammatical forms of this statement such as the interrogative,  the declarative, the imperative until you are forced to say something along the lines of "its six thirty in the morning and if you don't let me get some caffeine I will begin screaming-how's that for exclamatory?"  Once you have reacted this way, people are oddly reluctant to continue assisting you.
And of course none of the above teaches you how to read and write in the language (an important detail when you are text messaging your Romanian friends).
And this, dear readers, has been the long and winding road to our ultimate destination:  to inform you that Leigha now also attends the gradinita.
The little children don't seem to mind; the little girls bring me flowers and ask that I braid their hair (one would assume that after seeing what a tragedy my own hair is they would think better of asking but they are young and perhaps near-sighted as well).
Teo seems happy to have me there, I think she enjoys the company of an adult every once in a while.  The only ones who are bothered by my presence are my own children who had finally adjusted to the indignity of being in kindergarten and are now having to contend with the additional humiliation of attending school with their mother.
I don't go every day.  And I try to give them their space.  But still, its hard for them.
And so every chance I get, every opportunity that possibly affords itself, into every conversation that its possible to weave this information I tell them the unmistakable fact: (the one that every wife longs to be able to tell her children regarding her husband):  "don't blame me, this is all your father's fault."

A few photos that I love:

On the first really fine day of spring I saw this man on his way out of town.  What he was doing with the flowers I can only imagine but its lovely to contemplate...

Cristi lived in Italy for the first few years of his young life which was apparently long enough to give him that distinctly Italian male attitude.  He has informed me that he must learn English and I must keep practicing Romanian so that "we can talk more".

you've got to love such a cheeky chap